So, yes. Aisha knew all about weres even if her own parents hadn’t sat her down and had a serious talk with her (Dad standing in the doorway with his arms crossed and looking as if he would rather be undergoing dental surgery without anesthesia rather than being part of this conversation) the same day she got her first training bra. She carved a daisy into the plastic of her desk and tried not to look too bored while the teacher stood at the front of the glass and twisted her fingers together. Ms. Romanova had bright eyes and a round, docile face. Aisha doubted there had been were blood in her family for several generations, if ever. She cleared her throat several times as the first slide of the PowerPoint presentation glowed to life on the screen behind her. “All right, class,” she said. “Has everyone turned in their permission slips?” Ms. Romanova continued to twist her fingers around each other as Aisha’s classmates nodded one by one. Her eyes lingered on the children with obvious were lineage until they answered in the affirmative. Cultural sensitivity had come a long way over the past few decades, but teaching about the were wars of one hundred years before was still rumored to cause an argument at every school board meeting. Several teachers in other districts had been fired after non-were parents became offended. Aisha’s was one of the first classes in which the differences between were and non-were sexuality was even being addressed.
